Multistrada 1200 – Fitting Radiator & Oil Cool Guards
Tim’s ‘how to’ article below refers specifically to the Evotech Radiator and Oil Cooler guards but the procedure will be very much the same for R&G rad guards and other radiator / oil cooler protection systems.
MTS1200 – How to – Evotech guard set (oil and radiator) install
By Ducatisti.co.uk / Ducati.ms member ‘TimOz’ May2011
I ordered a set of UK made Evotech guards.
Evotech – Ducati Multistrada 1200 Radiator/Oil Cooler Guard Set
For the following reasons:
– well priced
– Radiator guard bolted on rather than glued or ziptied
– looks very protective
– light weight
– looks good
– looks unlikely to block air flow
Oil radiator guard with foam strip:
Radiator guard with foam strip and stick on foam dots:
These items came with instructions but they were minimal at best so I thought to put this method up as a “how to”.
Step 1. Prepare the Evotech guards
Easy. They come with foam strips to protect from rubbing on the radiators. You need to cut the strips in half, clean the area with ethanol.
Apply foam strips to oil and radiator guards and trim
Now to the bike…Sorry my bike is so dirty!
Step 2. Remove the bike nosecone
Remove the 10 small black screws holding on the nosecone.
There are 4 each side for the front part. 1 of these also screws through the small rear panel on each side and then the rear one.
The order of removal does not matter.
Remove the larger bottom screw that goes through a bracket and rubber grommet. You will have to use a hex spanner and something to grab the hex not at the back.
Take off the air temp sensor. This just pulls off. Also slide off the flexible tube that joins the airbox to the nosecone.
Slide the entire unit down at the front as there is a plastic post under the middle of the front piece that goes into a metal loop bracket on the rear of the oil radiator. You may have to gently bend out the fairing panels at the rear to remove the entire unit. Move the whole unit forward and off.
Step 3. Clean the radiators
I had many bugs and bug guts so I used a soft brush to clean them.
If you think you don’t need an oil cooler guard, look at this.
My bike has about 9,000km on it and I was surprised to see a hit to the oil radiator core. Looks like a stone has put a small dent and taken a bit of paint off. While there is no real damage or leak it would seem that a larger or faster projectile could damage the radiator and oil leaking above the front tyre seems a bad idea for so many reasons.
Step 4. Fit the oil cooler guard
The oil guard has a lip on the top that fits into the top of the radiator.
The bottom of the guard has 2 tabs with holes to loop a ziptie through.
The ziptie goes around the bracket on the bottom of the oil cooler. Zip it up and trim.
Job done.
Step 5. Fit the radiator guard
I have SW-Motech brackets fitted for LED driving lights and these bolt up to the side of the radiator that bolts on the bracket for the side fairing and now the radiator guard.
Remove the 2 bolts either side.
Fit up the guard, bracket (and in my case, the spotlight mount) and bolt it on using locktite.
I have the fairing bracket, light mount and radiator guard bolted on and there are no issues fitting all of this in terms of bolt length or clearance.
The Evotech radiator guard has stick on rubber buffers to stop the side fairing rubbing on the guard. In this case they are not needed due to the rubber bumpers already on the light mounts.
As an aside, I have been experimenting with the light mounts. The SW-Motech mount is a little short for the type of LED lights I am using and the lights just hit the fairing and it limited their adjustment range. I fitted 2 stainless chainplates (from a boating chandler) to move the lights about 10mm further forward. This works well and the lights are in the clear, adjustable and well away from the fork legs.
Step 6. Refit nosecone
Follow the reverse procedure. Slide the nosecone back onto the bike making sure that as it reaches the correct position, slide the air intake connector on the airbox back on the right side onto the intake part of the nosecone. Replug in the air temp sensor, also on the right hand side. It is best to pop in a few of the black screws to hold it together. Leave them very loose until you have all the screws in.
As another aside, I found these Valtermoto black anodised M4 x 15mm screws to replace the crappy standard ones that look rusty very quickly. They come with washers and I think it is important to uses these washers on all parts.
See here: V A L T E R M O T O
Now you have fitted the 10 small screws.
Fit the 2 larger screws that go through the bracket at the bottom of the fairing. This system is a little dodgy. The rubber grommet should be carefully pushed back through the hole in the bracket with a flat-bladed screwdriver before fitting the special hex bolt. Once everything is in place, make sure you tighten all 12 screws.
Job done – you almost don’t know it is there.
And finally here are pics of the radiator screens and amended spotlight setup.
All in all this would have been about a 35 minute job (without beer) or a 1 hour (with beer). I took a little longer as I was messing around with the light mounts but I have this done and dusted in under 1.5 hours.